I love turkey at Thanksgiving, but I wanted to try something a little different this year. Cranberry Hazelnut Turkey Wellington sure fit the bill! I’ve never made a traditional beef Wellington, so I knew this would be a challenge. I love a challenge!
This golden turkey wellington is a great alternative for Holiday cooking when serving just a few people. So impressive & so easy using frozen puff pastry.
The Ingredients
Everything was easy to find at my local grocery store. I couldn’t find fresh cranberries, but fortunately, the recipe said frozen would also work.
See that lovely turkey breast in the picture below? It didn’t come that way. Apparently, most turkey breasts are sold with the skin and bone. I could see the skin, but it wasn’t obvious that it hadn’t been deboned. (No, poking the package doesn’t help to tell if it has bones, trust me.) But Google always has my back, and I found a quick tutorial on how to debone a turkey breast. I had mine skinned and deboned in 5 minutes.
Another thing to note is that the amount of turkey or chicken stock isn’t specified. It says “a few tablespoons”, but I ended up using 12 tablespoons.
The Process
I spent a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes on my turkey Wellington. That breaks down as follows:
- Prep and assembly: 40 minutes
- Refrigerate: 20 minutes
- Bake: 65 minutes (20m at 400°F + 45m at 350°F)
- Stand: 10 minutes
It looks like the author only included the prep/assembly and baking times since the total time listed on the recipe is 1 hour 30 minutes. That part was pretty accurate, and I spent 1 hour 45 minutes on prep and baking. I’m also assuming he started with a skinned and deboned turkey breast, which I did not.
Assembling the Wellington was a little tricky because the stuffing was hot. I had to use a large spoon to press the stuffing to the turkey. As you can see, below, things got a little messy. I sure was glad I had to cover it all up with another layer of puff pastry!
The egg wash made the pastry stick together, and turning up the edges and pressing them with a fork sealed the deal, so to speak. I did have a bit of pastry leftover, but I opted not to decorate. I’m not that crafty!
